Bishop Schneider is wise and right about Archbishop Viganò

Further, Archbishop Viganò undermines his one heartening act and I'm not sure why he would do that

Bishop Athanasius Schneider is wise and right to rebuke Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, on the one hand, and call for restraint from the Vatican, on the other.

Bishop Schneider offers his opinion that “Vatican officials should invite Viganò privately, and not in a judicial setting, to smooth over differences. ‘I lament that Archbishop Viganò uses disrespectful language,’ he said, adding that ‘it’s not edifying or helpful to anyone.’”

“He [Archbishop Viganò] is in error, because he is voicing a new theory of the probably invalid theory of Francis’ illegitimate election,” Schneider said, adding that Viganò’s positions have “no foundation.” Schneider also claimed to have asked Viganò, who has been living in hiding since he published his public statement in 2018, to avoid using disrespectful language concerning the pope.

Regardless, the Kazakh bishop believes Viganò should not be excommunicated. “I think that today the church has so much internal division that it would be imprudent, even if there is some canonical ground to judge Archbishop Viganò.”

Bishop Schneider himself, as the article from the Religious News Service further notes, has been no timid critic of Pope Francis. But he has never called into question the Pope’s legitimacy, and for that reason, he remains a firm, calm presence.

I believe the Viganò problem goes beyond the bitter situation we find ourselves in with our hierarchy, his vituperation, and general division. I see no other solution than Bishop Schneider’s, but I am not sanguine that it will be taken. I will try to explain, but it does take some backstory.

The backstory is that Archbishop Viganò, formerly Papal Nuncio to the United States from 2011 to 2016, caused a seismic event in the Catholic Church in 2018 when he gave his “testimony” that Pope Francis knew of Pope Benedict’s sanction of then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick for allegations (and decades of rumors) of sexual abuse when he, Pope Francis, gave him, McCarrick, public responsibilities.

Many, including me, were grateful and relieved that McCarrick’s wrongdoings were being exposed. In ensuing reports, his vast influence, charmed fundraising, and political efforts, including interventions in China, were brought to light. This seemed, and still seems to me, to be a great and needed purgation — including a necessary and overdue exploration of his taint on the many, many members of the hierarchy who were his friends, cronies, and protégés. Ultimately, McCarrick was defrocked, though a complete purification has not taken place — far from it.

After that first testimony and the subsequent two, Archbishop Viganò went into hiding and began a deluge of messages that became increasingly political. Those missives often varied widely in tone, especially from the first three.

They became unreadable to those of us who believe a prelate has no business delving into partisan politics, as opposed to his rightful role, which is to enunciate principles. (By the way, unlike the VNS article and others, I don’t lump calling the covid “vaccines” into question part of this inappropriate political activity. Would that all the bishops had done just that — certainly Bishop Schneider had important observations, based on principle, to share on the subject. But naming candidates for election, pro and con, and touting Russia as some sort of path of salvation ought to have been considered out of bounds and became, frankly, tedious.)

Anyway, on June 11th, the Vatican Department for the Doctrine of the Faith summoned Archbishop Viganò to answer charges of schism.

While, surprising no one, he refused to appear, the archbishop issued a strongly worded statement repeating many accusations against Pope Francis that others have also made, usually in more temperate ways, but including a passage that does seem to suggest that he accepts the designation of schismatic:

“The Catholic Church was slowly but surely occupied and Bergoglio was given the task of making it a philanthropic agency, the “church of humanity, of inclusion, of the environment” at the service of the New World Order. But this is not the Catholic Church: it is its counterfeit.”

He said that to be called schismatic from this church is “a badge of honor.”

Knowing all this, it seems clear that Bishop Schneider’s approach to Archbishop Viganò seems like the most prudent one, for a couple of reasons.

First, everyone can see that there are bishops on the opposite end of the doctrinal spectrum who continually operate in a cloud of heterodoxy, leftist politics, and abuse. The faithful who deserve recourse from them are going to be hard put to watch the degradation of this one man, when his rantings are mostly limited to himself and a relatively small number of followers online. Many feel gas-lit by this papacy, and we need relief from the glee with which the Vatican pursues the traditional-minded while allowing the wolves to roam.

Second, where Archbishop Viganò is and what he is are a mystery. He is in hiding. He doesn’t go to Rome to face his charges. His voice seems to me to have been taken over by another (or more than one).

He went from relatively obscure functionary in the cogs of the Vatican machine — a diplomat, above all known for his smooth ability to oil the works and get along with everyone in the most noise-proof circles and cushiony environs, very much a participant in the conventional, Vatican II, Novus Ordo world — to white-glove wearing, brocade vestment donning, strident observer, ironically doing just what he deplores in other prelates and especially the Pope, namely, abandoning the ministerium of the hierarchy for purely partisan matters, best left to the laity.

There is not much logic in the change. We could believe in a McCarrick-denouncing, Francis-opposing, conscience-standing Viganò — and I did. What he became afterwards was obscure in its genesis, nor has he offered an explanation of the transformation.

Even beyond Bishop Schneider’s plea for an irenic outcome to avoid creating further division, I worry about focus on Archbishop Viganò taking our attention away from what really matters. His 6-year detour has created something I doubt 2018 Viganò intended.

And that thing is the shade of discredit cast on the original three testimonies that finally, after the long, unsatisfying era of “clerical abuse” was endured, opened up the field for a free and frank discussion of the bishops’ complicity in protecting the church culture whose impresario was unquestionably then-Cardinal McCarrick.

Archbishop Viganò, for unknown motives or pressured by overpowering allies, took on the role of controlled opposition to himself, something not often done. For half a decade, he, or possibly whoever has assumed his identity in public, has engaged in a process usually taken on by enemies masked as friends: sapping whatever vigor resides in the core truth by surrounding it with mockable excesses. If he did turn over his voice to another, I hope he will reclaim it; I hope that person relinquishes his role and restores his persona to the man.

Once again, as so often happens, we are being deflected from the real issue, which is the tight grip the homosexual and homosexual-adjacent (or “Tames” in Fr. Mankowksi’s memorable characterization) cabal have on our precious Mother Church. And for his strange role in that deflection, yes, Archbishop Viganò has a lot to answer for.

But Bishop Schneider is right. None of this, looked at from any perspective, is helped by an excommunication, but will be vastly magnified by it. The Vatican should attend to more pressing matters. Because of their evident commitment to distraction, I doubt they will; but I do hope the Pope listens to Bishop Schneider.